Naiad

Origin

The iconographic origin is the Greek nature-spirit (numen) belief of the eighth and seventh centuries BCE, and the decisive textual canon begins in lines 364-370 of the Theogony (Theogonia, about 1,022 lines) of Hesiod (Hesiodos, the Boeotian peasant poet) of c. 700 BCE. The plot is: the river-god Oceanus (Okeanos, son of Gaia) at the origin of the cosmos married his sister Tethys (Tethys, mother of all the waters of the cosmos) and bore 3,000 daughters the Oceanids and 3,000 sons the River-gods (Potamoi), and these river-gods placed their decisive descendants the Naiads in their rivers and springs — the decisive canon. The river nymphs appear decisively in Books 14 and 20 of the Iliad and Books 13 and 17 of the Odyssey by Homer in the eighth century BCE, and the canon of Hera in Book 14 promising Pasithea (one of the Graces, Charites) to the god of sleep Hypnos appears. In lines 1,222-1,272 of Book 1 of the Argonautica by the Alexandrian poet Apollonius Rhodius (Apollonios Rhodios, 295-215 BCE) of the fourth and third centuries BCE — Hylas (Hylas), the squire of Heracles (Heracles), was enchanted by the Naiads at the spring of Pegai in Mysia (Asia Minor) and dragged into the water — the decisive episode, the tragic decisive event of the Naiad canon. The Idyll 13 of the third-century BCE Greek poet Theocritus (Theokritos, 300-260 BCE) poetically canonised the Hylas canon, and the Description of Greece by the second-century Greek geographer Pausanias (Pausanias) systematised the sacred sites of Naiad belief across Greece.

Features

• Form of a beautiful human female
• Dwelling in freshwater sources: springs, rivers, lakes, wells
• Presiding over the divinity, abundance, and life of the water source
• Permanent being bound to her own water source
• Sometimes becoming the lover of gods and heroes
• Inspiration of song, music, dance, and poetic prophecy

Stories

Hesiod's Theogony of c. 700 BCE — the canon of the 3,000 sisters Oceanids of Oceanus and Tethys — and the river-nymph canon of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey of the eighth century BCE are the origins of the Naiad canon, and the Hylas episode of Apollonius Rhodius's Argonautica of the fourth and third centuries BCE is the decisive canon. The third-century BCE Theocritus's Idyll 13 and the second-century Pausanias's Description of Greece extended the canon, and the Metamorphoses of the Roman poet Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso, 43 BCE - 17 CE) of c. 8 BCE — Books 4, 5, 8, and 14 — established the Latin-literary Naiad canon. Renaissance Italy — Polifilo's Hypnerotomachia Poliphili of 1499 and the paintings of Caravaggio (1571-1610) of c. 1593 — settled the Renaissance visual canon of Naiad iconography. The 1893 painting Ulysses and the Sirens by the British Pre-Raphaelite Herbert James Draper (1863-1920) and the 1896 painting Hylas and the Nymphs by John William Waterhouse (1849-1917) — held by the Manchester Art Gallery in Britain — decisively established the visual canon of the Naiad in the nineteenth-century Victorian Pre-Raphaelite era. Paracelsus's 1566 A Book of Nymphs, Sylphs, Pygmies, and Salamanders and its Undine — the spirit of Water among the four element spirits — reinterpreted the Naiad in Renaissance European elementalism, and the Naiad monster of the 1977 D&D Monster Manual by Gary Gygax of TSR in the USA — consistent through to 5e (5th Edition) of 2014 — is the modern fantasy RPG Naiad canon. The 1989 Disney animation The Little Mermaid's Ariel and the 2003 Pixar Finding Nemo extended the twenty-first-century global freshwater and saltwater spirit iconography.

Weakness

The Naiad's weaknesses are: (1) drying up of the water source — since Hesiod's Theogony, the decisive weakness that the Naiad, bound to her own water source, vanishes immediately when the water source dries up, the core canon of Greek nature-spirit belief; (2) pollution of the water source — the canonical weakness in Greek mythology that the Naiad is weakened or transformed when the water source is polluted by sewage, corpses, or sacrilege, the canon of Naiad belief across Greece in Pausanias's Description of Greece; (3) Hesiodic binding — the decisive canon of environmental binding in Hesiod's Theogony, that the Naiad cannot leave her own water source; (4) hero's sword and sacred weapon — the heroic-mythological canon since the Hylas canon of Apollonius Rhodius's Argonautica of the fourth and third centuries BCE; (5) wrath of the gods — the canon of transformation tales, that in Book 8 of Ovid's Metamorphoses, Erysichthon (Erysichthon) cut down a tree of Demeter's sacred grove, and the Naiad was transformed by the wrath of Demeter; (6) flow of time — the canon in Greek mythology that the Naiad lives longer than humans, but ultimately disappears with her own water source; (7) hero's rejection — an adaptation of the Hylas canon, in which the Naiad vanishes in sorrow if the hero rejects her seduction; (8) intervention of other gods — the Greek-mythological canon that the Olympian gods Hera, Artemis, and Apollo transform or pacify the Naiad. In the finale of the Hylas canon of Apollonius Rhodius's Argonautica of the fourth and third centuries BCE, Heracles is left in lamentation searching for Hylas — the decisive tragedy of heroic myth — the decisive event of the Naiad canon.

Cultural Significance

The Naiad is not merely a nature-spirit icon but the canonical iconographic figure of the Greek-Western nature-spirit canon, traversing eighth-century BCE Homeric epic, seventh-century BCE Hesiodic Theogony, fourth- and third-century BCE Apollonius Rhodius Alexandrian-school epic, first-century BCE Ovidian Latin poetry, 1566 Paracelsus's elementalism, nineteenth-century British Pre-Raphaelite painting, and twentieth-century D&D fantasy RPG. The Naiad Castalia of the Castalian Spring (Kastalia) by the Temple of Apollo at Delphi (Delphi) — at the foot of Mount Parnassus (Parnassos) in central mainland Greece — is the decisive canon of poetic prophetic inspiration, the canonical inspiration of ancient Greek poets and of the 1819 Endymion of the British poet John Keats (1795-1821) and the nineteenth-century Romantic poetry. The tragic Hylas canon of Book 1 of the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius of the fourth and third centuries BCE — as the most tragic event of Heracles's heroic myth — was established as the visual canon of the nineteenth-century Victorian Pre-Raphaelite era by Waterhouse's 1893 painting Hylas and the Nymphs (held by the Manchester Art Gallery in Britain), and on 31 January 2018, the Manchester Art Gallery's temporary removal of the work became the decisive event of the twenty-first-century feminist controversy (the work was re-exhibited on 3 February the same year). The Greek-mythological ballet of the American Kennedy Center Concert Hall premiere of 21 May 1989 — under the influence of the American composer Claude Debussy's 1894 Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun (Prelude a l apres-midi d un faune) — is the twentieth-century musical Naiad canon. The Naiad monster of the 1977 D&D Monster Manual — consistent through to 5e (5th Edition) of 2014 — is the decisive canon of the modern fantasy RPG nature spirit, and the 2010 Warner Brothers film Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (based on Rick Riordan's original) series settled the twenty-first-century global Greek-mythological young-adult cinematic canon.

In Popular Culture

Homer, Iliad and Odyssey (eighth century BCE) — origin of the river-nymph canonHesiod, Theogony, lines 364-370 (c. 700 BCE) — decisive canon of the 3,000 sisters of Oceanus and TethysApollonius Rhodius, Argonautica, Book 1, Hylas (fourth-third century BCE) — decisive heroic-mythological canonTheocritus, Idyll 13 (third century BCE) — poetic extension of the Hylas canonOvid, Metamorphoses (c. 8 BCE) — Latin-literary Naiad canonPausanias, Description of Greece (second century CE) — sacred sites of Naiad belief across GreeceParacelsus, A Book of Nymphs, Sylphs, Pygmies, and Salamanders, Undine (1566) — Renaissance elemental Undine canonWaterhouse, Hylas and the Nymphs (1896) — decisive Victorian Pre-Raphaelite visual canonGygax, D&D Monster Manual, Naiad (1977) — fantasy RPG canonCastalian Spring at Delphi, Greece — decisive sacred site of poetic prophetic inspiration